


Instinct

by mpatientdreamr



Category: Charmed
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-15
Updated: 2012-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-10 00:55:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/460449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpatientdreamr/pseuds/mpatientdreamr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piper wasn't even sure if she liked him and she wanted to mother him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Instinct

**Author's Note:**

> Charmed, gen, set during s6: Piper is injured and Chris takes care of her.

Glancing fireballs stung. Piper rotated her arm, hissing as the burned flesh stretched and pulled in unfortunate ways.

“Stop that,” Chris snapped, grabbing her elbow and pulling her arm back down. “That’ll just make it hurt worse.”

“Obviously,” she said dryly, ignoring the way his hands shook as he carefully cleaned the wound. 

Piper occasionally had to wonder what the Elders were on, giving the Charmed Ones a Whitelighter that couldn’t heal. Chris was nice enough…okay, so he was neurotic and pushy and single mindedly devoted to the destruction of all demons everywhere. He was good to have around in a pinch, but it would have been nice to not have to bear the proof of the burdens of their destiny quite so permanently on her skin. 

“You shouldn’t have tried that vanquish alone,” he admonished. Again. 

“I killed it, didn’t I? That’s all that matters,” she said, fighting a scowl. She winced instead when he pressed a poultice to it. “Ow.”

He paled a little, looking torn between yanking his hand back and finishing the treatment. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she sighed, biting back another wince. 

She knew better than to complain or whine too much. Every time she got hurt and he had to tend to her, it seemed to pain him almost as much as her. He’d get paler and shakier the longer it took, then afterward, he’d disappear for a couple of days, only to reappear with yet another demon to fight. If her sisters had been there instead of spread across the globe, she’d have had them do it. Unfortunately, it was just him, her, and her infant son holding down the fort these days. 

“Almost done,” he murmured, bent to his task.

She reached out and pushed his hair out of his face, an impulse that had him jerking like she’d bit him. “You need a haircut,” she said, at a loss as to why she’d touched him.

He bound off his chair, eyes too big in his pale face. “I just-I need-,” he flailed for a second, then practically shouted, “Scissors!”

He hurried away upstairs as Piper stared, eyebrows pitched high on her forehead. She’d dealt with a lot of strange people since becoming a witch, but Christopher Perry got weirder every day. And it was possible that he’d driven her to his level of crazy because she kept having the strangest urge to mother him, to nag about the state of his clothes and what he was eating and where he was sleeping. She wasn’t even sure if she _liked_ him and she wanted to take care of him. 

He was gone long enough that she thought he’d just left, so she started tidying up the scattered swabs and bloody rags. He came loping down the stairs as she was standing, already shaking his head.

“Hey, hey, no,” he said, grabbing the bowl of water from her and setting it back on the table and nudging her back into her seat. “I’ve got to finish dressing that. I couldn’t find the scissors.”

He pulled the heavy sewing sheers out of his back pocket and waggled them at her, his proof that he hadn’t been running from her.

She sat and watched him closely, aware that his hands were steadier and that he kept enough space between them to avoid accidental contact. He was quick and almost professional and as soon as her bandage was taped, he disappeared. Piper sighed, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Christopher Perry was a very, very strange, possibly emotionally stunted young man and she did not have time to unravel his mystery. She already had a house, a club, and, most importantly, a son to tend to. She didn’t need to try to tame the stray that had showed up at her doorstep and now wouldn’t leave. No matter how much her instincts were begging her to.


End file.
